The "beef" is the power of the Supreme Court and the agencies that enforce "their" interpretations of the court rulings. You have no "beef" with me. I certainly believe in the concept of our religious roots and the freedoms to believe and express any of those beliefs.

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Precisely! Good reason to have someone in office that would appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court that won't find things in the Constitution and Bill of Rights that aren't.

We have to be carful with seperation of church and state. It must remain seperate, but it has to come from both sides. I'm a believer, but I strongly feel that the church must stay out of politics..... You can't gry foul and say seperation of church and state, then as a church get right in the middle of it everytime somethings comes up. The preacher should not spend all sunday service telling his flock who to vote for. That maybe should stay seperate time and be spent in worship to our lord...

I believe if we MUST err, it should be on the side of separation.
If the twits in DC can't tell the difference between Baptist vs Episcopal and Christian vs Islam, it IS better if they avoid the topic completely.

You're right, CJ about it being a two-way street.
We wanted to assure that other countries had fair elections, and did that through the power of the UN.
Now we have UN observers nosing into OUR elections!

I don't see any reason for churches to avoid the topic of politics. They are under the rule of the same government as the people and their members, including the preachers vote also.

I also see every reason for the government to stay out of religion. Banning the pledge of allegiance in schools though is going too far. If some atheist parent objects to the pledge of allegiance stating 'one nation under God' fine - they can tell their kid not to say it but the kid should stand with the rest of the class out of respect for the country anyway.

The break-point is that a church with 501(c)3 status cannot officially endorse a candidate, nor can they speak against a specific candidate, or they are violating the tax-exempt agreement with the government. They cannot put something like this on their church sign, print it in their bulletin, nor can the pastor say such from the pulpit.

To say they must avoid politics altogether is ludicrous; politics and religion are so entertwined that the two cannot be separated.
Abortion.
Gays.
Wars.
Food stamps.
Welfare.
corporal punishment of children.
Self defense.
Possession of weapons.
And a hundred more.
Political issues all, and each one is deeply involved in Religion as well.

It is not explicitly stated in that manner, but is implied in the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." . Essentially that means the same thing.

It was not always thus, and in fact we went thru several periods during the early colonial days of permitting/rescinding freedom of religion.

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Actually Gunny it not even close to the same thing. What it truly means is that religion and the practise of it and those who practise are free from government intervention, that was true until Obama came along and decided that all christians should pay for " health services " that they find morally objectionable thereby ignoring the constitution once again.

You're wrong. "Establishment" as referred to by the founders was a direct response to the Church of England which was an "established" religion dictated by the state.

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Matthew 21 said:

28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.

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Which is worse, to declare the Church of England to be the state religion but do nothing about it (as the UK today), or to not have an "established" state religion but to show favoritism to one religious group over others?

What is an "established" state religion but a religious group that is favored over others? Whether declared or not, favoring any religious group over others is establishing a religion.

The founders did NOT want religion to be excluded from government.

Not allowing political speech in churches violates the 1st amendment.

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Your first point there is debatable, though I agree with you on it.

The second is absolutely correct. What freedom of speech is there if not free political speech by absolutely everyone?

If you read early American history, you'll find that the "established church" was supported by the government. Also no other religious group was allowed to own land or buildings. That was bypassed by electing members of the congregation as the property owners. When they became too old, they resigned and younger members were elected in their place. Church groups were not allowed to incorporate until Congress passed enabling laws about 1810. Our Constitution doesn't allow the "state" to give financial support to any religious group, but it also forbids government from interfering with any group in the practice of their religion. That's where it gets sticky, because some people insist that allowing religious grooups to use publicly owned facilities, even for such things as a ball game is a violation of the religious clause. That goes way back where none of the religious groups liked each other very much. For example, in many churches you will occasionally hear the ministers rant about the early Roman Church in the 14th century chaining bibles to the pillars so people couldn't take them. Actually true. A bible at that time represented the life work of perhaps 20 monks, were rare and valuable and few people could read anyway. The first book printed by Gutenberg was a bible.

If you read early American history, you'll find that the "established church" was supported by the government.

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Many state governments did have official religions for decades.

Of course, the 14th Amendment changed the whole nature of the Constitution, making it a limit on state governments that were previously limited only by their own constitutions and their people. The stuff previously disallowed to Congress now applies to all government in this country.